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Quadra Island natives want to stop mill from burning coal until study done |
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Canada First Perspective
October 27, 2005
CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. (CP)- The First Nation on Quadra Island has asked
the B.C. government not to approve an application for the Elk Falls
pulp and paper mill to burn any more coal until the emissions have been
studied.
The 200-member Cape Mudge band is worried about the possible health effects of air emissions from the NorskeCanada mill.
An emissions-fallout study commissioned by Norske during the past year
showed elevated levels of various toxic compounds around the Cape Mudge
lighthouse a few hundred metres south of Cape Mudge village.
But mill personnel said the figures were well within safety limits.
Mill vice-president Norm Facey said if the mill waste was causing
health problems the group most likely to be affected would be mill
employees.
“If that was happening the WCB (Workers Compensation Board) would be all over us,” he said.
Government agencies are required to consult with and help protect First
Nations from the environmental and health impact of industrial plans.
A Cape Mudge member said new or recurring cases of cancer have been
coming in at a rate of at least two a year over the past 10 years or
more, about three times the number of cases at the nearby Quinsam
Indian reserve, which receives only a fraction of the mill’s
smoke-stack emissions compared to Cape Mudge.
Cape Mudge band administrator Brian Kelly said the two First Nations
communities are an almost exact mirror image of each other
demographically, in population, age distribution, dietary habits and
lifestyle, such as smoking.
“I don’t see there’s any reason it (the cancer rate) would be different
(apart from the mill emissions),” Kelly said. “The thing is that we’d
had people in their 40s and early 50s (diagnosed with cancer), so it’s
not like it’s people 75 plus.”
The mill is seeking an open-ended amendment to its present temporary
permit to burn up to 83 tonnes a day of coal as an auxiliary fuel for
its boilers.
The permit expired Friday. The Environment Ministry’s waste protection
branch extended it for 30 days and also extended the consultation
period until the end of October.
Facey said if the company was not allowed to go on burning coal at the
mill, that would have a severe impact on the operation’s economics,
already hit by several other factors such as the high value of the
Canadian dollar.
Facey said the mill was prepared to work with the First Nation to try
to get more continuous- monitoring equipment, perhaps for a study over
two years.
A letter from the band to the B.C. government called for increased air pollution monitoring.
“Additional contamination from the burning of coal would create further
damage to the health, safety and enjoyment of life of this aboriginal
community,” it said. |
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